


Chase the Wind

by ej_writer



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Football Player Billy, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Neil Hargrove's A+ Parenting, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29812941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ej_writer/pseuds/ej_writer
Summary: Billy is Hawkins’ football star. The spot light reveals some nasty things.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove & Jim "Chief" Hopper, Billy Hargrove & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Eleven | Jane Hopper & Billy Hargrove
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17





	Chase the Wind

Billy makes the football team his very first week in Hawkins. 

It took a bit of convincing for the school to let him join since the season started in August, almost three months before he moved to town, but one look at how he played and the coach promoted him from a shoe-in for next year’s lineup to this season’s quarterback. 

Hawkins High hadn’t had a football season worth anything in its recent history, the team always made up of nothing but a roster of scrawny ex-populars trying to impress their way into the cheerleaders pants and uninterested boys only there because their dads were reliving their teenage years through them. 

Closest thing to a decent player they’d had in a long was Tommy H, and he’d been permanently kicked off the team his freshman year for racking up too many violent penalties in one season. Billy though, he gives them a run for their money. 

First game of his season and he’d gotten three touchdowns practically unassisted by his team, and slowly with practice every other day, the other boys start taking to his influence, and the Tigers creep their way up towards being actual competition. 

  
With every Friday night that he plays, Billy realizes more and more that this is what he wants to do for the rest of his life. 

The stadium lights on him, the boys on the team patting him on the back when he did something right, the people out in the stands cheering for him because of what he did, that was something he never wanted to lose the experience of. 

Out there on the field, nobody really knew who he was under the helmet. His jurisdiction was the student body, not their parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles who came to watch them play. To them, he was just number six, the Tigers’ quarterback who could run circles around the other boys on both teams, not the Hargrove kid that everyone wanted a piece of. 

Football was _his_ thing. It wasn’t like when his dad coached him in baseball when he was nine, or signed him up for basketball as a form of discipline when he was fourteen. Friday nights in the fall were spent doing exactly what _he_ wanted, and he felt free. 

Because in its own way, it’s like an act of rebellion, one that Neil can’t control that keeps him away from him most days because of practice. If he’s out there doing his very best, there’s nothing that his dad can hold over his head. Instead, he’ll be right there with him putting on his little show of being proud at the end of every game.

At home, he would sit around in his room for hours, drinking and smoking and listening to his music so loud his ears rang just trying to feel _something._

On the field though, between the impact of a body against his, the heavy shoulder pads weighing down on him, the noises of the crowd and the coaches’ whistles and the band all going at once, the feeling of the firm leather ball in his hands and cold wind on his face, he didn’t need to chase that anymore, that ability to be present in his own life. 

For once, he doesn’t feel so _numb._

So when on the day before the big game against their rival team, the Jets, his dear old dad decides to shove him down the basement steps, Billy shows up to practice anyways. That rush of being out there on the turf and doing something right for once isn’t something he’s willing to give up because of a stupid incident like that.

Coach notices right off the bat that he’s off his game, sees it in the way he favors his right leg, the way he can’t throw as far or as hard as he usually does and how he’s sweating bullets from the minimum of effort, so he gets sidelined for practice. 

They all know it’s just for practice though that he’ll be out, the Tigers can’t afford to lose their star player come game time. Billy’s ordered to stayed rested and as hydrated as he can until then, and no smokes either. 

It’s good enough a deal for him, he doesn’t really need the practice anyways when the rest of the team is a bunch of bumbling fools and ball hogs who could hardly remember the difference between which end zone they were supposed to score in, but even just sitting there is rough on him. 

There’s a feeling under his skin like he’s sunburnt even though it’s cloudy, and every bruise and point of impact from the fall is throbbing until he can’t even find it in himself to ignore it long enough to pay attention to the play coach is going through with the rest of the boys anymore. 

He goes home and downs a handful of pain meds, and wakes up the next morning feeling worse than before, exhausted and sore to the potentially fractured bone. 

He decides he doesn’t have the stomach for breakfast, and his hair goes completely undone. He’s hardly even able to drag himself out of his bed and get presentable enough to take him and Max to school. 

Already it’s obvious that there’s no way he’s gonna be in any shape to play come 7, he realizes he might as well stay home and try not to push it too far, but Neil already told him, if he skips a single game he’s getting pulled and going back to his other sports, so he drives to the school anyways. 

The day goes by in a flash, probably because he slept through half his classes or was too busy thinking about the effort it took to breath to pay attention to the rest, and before he knows it, it’s t-minus fifteen minutes to game time, and he still can’t see straight through the pain. 

He feels like an idiot for not getting better when he was supposed to, but more so for even considering quitting. That was exactly what Neil wanted, for him to give up the one thing he loved because of something stupid like a tumble down some stairs. 

He grinds his teeth against his mouth guard until it feels like his jaw’ll pop, then does it some more. The boys do their huddle like they’re supposed to, but he’s just sort of standing there focusing on staying as still as he can while the rest of the team gets hyped around him.

Coach pushes the door open with a shout of something that’s supposed to be inspirational, but the rush of cold air from outside makes Billy feel like he’s overheating.

The hurting on its own isn’t all that bad anymore, or at least he doesn’t think so compared to how it was that morning, but before the game even starts, they’ve gotta run the start of the field through the team banner like they did at all the home games, and that alone is enough to make his head spin. 

Some part of him knows he shouldn’t do it, wants to pass his helmet on and stand on the sidelines with all the twig-thin freshman boys who never get their shot before he hurts himself worse, but he doesn’t. He falls right into line with the rest of the boys, gets in starter position and-

And he fumbles the ball. The next time he gets the whistle blown with a false starts. 

Coach threatens to pull him for costing them the five yards, and Billy’s ready to argue, but one glance up into the home stands at the stern faced man in a trucker cap, a redhead on either side, and he swears it won’t happen again. Squares his jaw and pushes forward, takes what’s coming. 

The Tigers do ridiculously bad in the first half, they don’t get the fourth and ten, and the other team gets touchdown after touchdown while they get nothing. 

And it’s Billy’s fault, because he’s winded, his eyes are blurry at the edges and it just, it fucking _hurts._ He can’t get his shit together for long enough to make a single play, and everyone’s noticing. 

It’s the refs’ job to call him on it, but the announcer doesn’t help anything, makes it known over the loudspeakers that their prized number six isn’t on his best game, but that just makes him fight harder.

Even if he can’t run more than half of one yard line at a time, even if he has to stop every few seconds because his blood runs cold and his face goes numb and he thinks he’s gonna pass out, because he’s not gonna give up for this.

  
It’s an honest to God miracle that he even makes it to halftime. And that’s _barely_. 

Barely, that he's able to handle the aching in his whole body that takes his breath away. Barely, that he doesn’t throw up his guys every time he gets hit by another kid just doing what they’re supposed to and a sharp pain runs through every bone in his body. Barely, that he’s able to keep the tears from spilling over while he’s getting chewed out in the locker room for his piss poor first half. 

He nods along, mumbles out a sorry coach when he thinks he’s supposed to so it seems like he’s listening, but really he’s just focusing on trying to breathe. Besides, he doesn’t think he could hear him over the blood pounding in his ears if he tried.

Those twenty minutes off the field go by too fast, a sentiment he _never_ thought would have crossed his mind, and before he’s even got the chance to get his bearings, the team’s lining up to go back out there. 

One of the other boys, in an attempt at raising the morale of the only person on the team capable of recovering this late in the game, pushes on the back of his helmet and wishes him luck, and he’s got to grab onto the wall just to not collapse.

If he can’t take a playful shove from one of their boys he knows he won’t be able to handle himself on the field, knows he’s being stupid and stubborn again, but can’t lose this, he is going back out there.

He makes it for all of three minutes into the third quarter without passing out, but without scoring either before shit goes sideways. He figured he’d take what he could get performance wise, so by the time their second play is over, he’s almost feeling proud of himself for pushing through.

At least, that is until he can’t do it anymore. 

Because number 23 on the other team shoulder checks him _hard_ and the both of them go down on the 20 yard line. Except Billy doesn’t get back up. 

He can’t, he finds. The fall took every last bit of fight he had left in him. 

It’s just too much, the pain in his chest and his back and fucking everywhere else completely takes over his senses, and even when the other guy gets up and he’s still just, laying there. 

He doesn’t hear the kid asking if he’s alright, or the way the crowd goes quiet either, doesn’t see anything more than the blurry face above him, without any idea how long he’s down for. All he knows is that he feels sick and that he’s shaking and that he can’t sit up. 

The one that knocked him down offers him a guilty hand up. He misses it on the first try, but he grabs it with a grip that’s definitely too weak and he’s basically no help as he’s pulled to his feet. 

The stadium lights he usually loved to have on him make blurry streaks that burn across his vision and sends a throb of pain straight to his head as he almost topples over again, but the other kid makes sure he doesn’t let go of him. 

Once he’s coming back to himself and he’s sure he’s not going to lose consciousness, he shakes everyone trying to help off of him. Even with the ref and the coach and the other kids crowding him, his eyes lock straight onto Neil Hargrove and his disapproving scowl up in the bleachers. 

And Billy decides he’s done. 

He doesn’t care about proving shit to anyone anymore, doesn’t pay any mind to the consequences, he just, rips his helmet off and throws it to the ground, and storms off the field, shoving anyone who’s in his way. 

Even though he’s limping like a son of a bitch, nobody stops him as he shoulders past the coach shouting at him to get his helmet back on, or past the cheerleaders kneeling for an injured player and the nerds in the bandstands, through the gate and back to the locker rooms.

He can’t stop the tears that fall the moment the metal door swings shut behind him, or the sobs that echo off of the walls of the empty locker room as he tries to shake his shoulder pads off of aching shoulders. 

It wasn’t about embarrassment, he couldn’t give a shit less about that, it wasn’t like this would be the first time in the season he’d gotten hurt out there, and it wasn’t about the pain, he’d dealt with enough of that. This, this was about Neil. 

About hurting himself on purpose to please an apathetic father, having to choose between doing what made him happy and being safe, what he knew to anticipate the moment he got home after a spectacle like that. 

He pulls his jersey back on, pretends he doesn’t see the ugly black bruises on his ribs, and throws his weight down on the bench, defeated. He’d been so sure he would be able to fight to the end, to play good even though it hurt so bad. 

But he couldn’t do it, and now he’s afraid.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> Updates on this are probably gonna be somewhat slow, at least for my usual chapter a day pace! Hope y’alls interest has been grabbed for now though! <3 from EJ!


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